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Jan 14, 2012

Its About "Time"

Yes, its about "time" I did something with my ever-growing jewelry stash!

I have a thing for jewelry and so does my sister-in-law, Kathy, over at Katalina Jewelry. We have spent quite a few hours lately going through tubs and tubs (and I mean BIG tubs) of costume jewelry that is a by-product of The Jewelry Lady's (that's what she calls herself) precious metal business. We love sorting through the piles of mismatched earrings, broken necklaces, watches, brooches, etc. looking for what we regard as treasure! After several hours, our hands are dirty and our eyes are tired (especially if we forget our reading glasses...although, not to worry, sometimes we even find a pair of reading glasses in the pile!), but we are thrilled to walk away with a shoebox full of bling. Then we get home, we dump out our treasure and sort through it all over again admiring the silver, gold, and rhinestones. All the while trying to ignore the "why on earth do you need more jewelry?" look that is on the faces of our understanding husbands. (Okay, maybe my brother doesn't give Kathy that look, but I have seen it on the face of my husband...a lot!) I have tried to organize it the best I can. I have great plans for it...someday. But Kathy has issued a challenge to herself and I want to take on the challenge, too. She has vowed to make something new each month from her stash of jewelry. You can check out her January design here, it's beautiful! For a real treat check out her series of jewelry made from shoes, her salt shaker necklace, and a cool piece she calls "Road Trip." You can also visit her Etsy shop...she is one talented lady!

There's no "time" like the present, so on to the challenge. I picked through some of the pieces and decided to build a design around a pocket watch I had picked up at a garage sale. I threw in a few more pieces to work with.

As you can see, the pocket watch has a locomotive on it. As a rule, I like trains. My dad worked all his life for the railroad and I loved going to the train yard and looking for "Herbies" that were scrawled onto the freight cars. Those are fond memories.

But, for this project, a train was not what I was looking for. So, I removed the cover of the pocket watch. I actually had to take the whole thing apart to reposition the watch face in the upright position. It was kind of a pain and the watch doesn't function anymore, but its better than looking at it side ways! I used wire to work a couple of round watches into the design. I imagine that if I would put new batteries in them, they would actually keep time. The flower at the base of the watch is an earring. Originally, it had a screw-type back. I removed the screw, but left the loop. This created a nice place to dangle a charm. I did add another small silver piece to cover the hole at the top of the pocket watch that was exposed when I removed the cover. After it was finished, I had fun finding interesting ways to photograph it in my backyard!

Hanging from the grape arbor using a low f-stop to blur the background.

I love how this turned out, very nice! I know exactly how you feel when you're going through your new stash, I do the same thing with my mom. We could keep ourselves entertained for hours. Keep up the good work!

How gorgeous! And I love all the stylish photos you took of the piece too!

Just stopped by to let you know that I featured your placemat folders and bags on my round tuit post this week! Round Tuit 84Thanks again for linking up! Hope you have a great week!Jill @ Creating my way to Success